We need find no difficulty in reconciling Froissart with these other documents; Edward's was a love-match, but, like all Royal love-matches, subject to possible considerations of State. The first negotiations for a papal dispensation carefully avoid exact specification; the request is simply for leave to marry "one of the daughters" of Hainault; only two months before the actual marriage does the final document bear Philippa's name.
The Queen's public life--the scene before Calais, and her (somewhat doubtful) presence at the battle of Nevile's Cross--belongs rather to the general history of England; of her private life, as of Chaucer's, a great deal only flashes out here and there, meteor-wise, from account-books and similar business documents. We find, for instance, what gifts were given to the messengers who announced the births of her successive children to the King; and Beltz, in his "Memorials of the Garter," has unearthed the name of the lady who nursed the Black Prince.[178] We find Edward building for his young consort the castle since called Queenborough, the master-mason on this occasion being John Gibbon, ancestor to the great historian. At another moment we see the Earl of Oxford, as Chamberlain, claiming for his perquisites after the coronation Philippa's bed, shoes, and three silver basins; but Edward redeemed the bed for £1000.[179] This redemption is explained by divers entries in the Royal accounts; in 1335-6 the King owed John of Cologne £3000 for a bed made "against the confinement of the Lady Philippa ... of green velvet, embroidered in gold, with red sirens, bearing a shield with the arms of England and Hainault." The infant on this occasion was the short-lived William of Hatfield, whose child-tomb may be seen in York Cathedral. Her carpets for a later confinement cost £900, but her bed only £1250. And so on to the latest entries of all--the carving of her tomb at Westminster; the wrought-iron hearse which the canons of St. Paul's obligingly took from the tomb of Bishop Northbrooke and sold for that of the Queen at the price of £600;[180] lastly, the rich "mortuary" accruing to the Chapter of York Minster, who got for their perquisite the bed on which Philippa had breathed her last, and had its rich hangings cut up into "thirteen copes, six tunics and one chasuble."[181]